Read Online The Shell House by Linda Newbery - Free Book Online Page A

one?’
    She looked at him. ‘But I do. I am. If I didn’t believe—well, what would it all be about?’
    ‘What would what be about?’
    ‘Life. Everything. What would it all mean?’
    ‘OK, so what
does
it mean? You’re telling me you’ve got it sussed?’
    She was stretching deep into the bush, reaching for a cluster of berries, showing a strip of smooth flesh between jeans and T-shirt. A thorn caught at the yellow fabric; she stopped to free herself, then bent the stem down in an arc. ‘It means living for God. For Jesus. Everything we do is for them. Without that, there’d be no point in anything. No meaning.’
    ‘Shouldn’t we work out our own meaning?’
    ‘OK, so what’s yours?’ she asked, chin high.
    ‘You do like to ask awkward questions, don’t you? Only I’m not pretending to have the answers. What you said—is that what you’ve been taught? Or do you believe it for yourself?’
    She turned to stare at him, holding the thorny spray away from her face. ‘Of course I believe it. If I didn’t, it would just be . . .’
    ‘Mm?’
    ‘Like cleaning your teeth every morning and night. Like looking both ways before you cross the road. Just following rules, no more than that.’
    ‘So you’re a real born-again Christian? Or a born-into-it Christian?’
    ‘Every true Christian is born again. Just going to church and reading the Bible doesn’t make you a Christian. You have to know that Jesus died for you. No, more than that, you have to
feel
it. You have to know it inside yourself.’
    Greg was beginning to feel preached at. ‘So you know that Jesus died for you? He died for your sins that you wouldn’t commit for another two thousand years?’
    ‘He died to show me the way to God. And to show you.’
    He huffed a laugh; she looked at him sharply but turned away to concentrate on her picking. He dropped a handful of berries into the bag, assimilating this new aspect of her. He felt, in a way, embarrassed; he wasn’t used to having conversations like this. He knew other people who went to church, of course—there was a girl in his form who taught a Sunday school class. Some people rode bikes or played football, others went to church. But for Faith, it was obviously more than that. It was—well, real faith. He didn’t know whether to feel amused, irritated or impressed.
    ‘What about you?’ Faith asked.
    ‘What about me what?’
    ‘What do you believe in?’
    Greg puffed out his cheeks. ‘I don’t believe in God, no.’
    ‘What, then? What do you think we’re doing here?’
    ‘I think we evolved from apes. I mean, God creating the world in seven days and all that—fine, nice story, when people believed the earth was the centre of the universe, but it doesn’t make much sense now. Not since Stephen Hawking and Big Bang theories have proved it wasn’t like that.’
    ‘Proved? Aren’t those just theories?’
    ‘Better theories than yours, though.’
    ‘I don’t see that. The Big Bang doesn’t rule out the existence of God.’
    ‘The universe obeys its own laws—the laws of physics,’ Greg said. ‘There’s no need for a God to have created it.’
    ‘But God
made
the laws of physics. Otherwise, what? Scientists keep talking about the first few seconds of the universe, but what was before that? What made time and space?’ Faith paused to suck a blackberry prickle from her finger. ‘Anyway, go on.’
    ‘Go on what?’
    ‘About the Big Bang,’ Faith said. ‘How you understand it.’
    Christ! (And he’d better not say
that
aloud.) He wasn’t sure how much he
did
understand. It was a bit much to be called upon to account for his existence, the existence of the whole universe—all out of the blue on a Sunday morning when he’d come here to get away from last night. ‘Well, it was about twelve billion years ago,’ he began reluctantly. ‘And our galaxy exploded from a singularity—the centre of a black hole. And maybe that’s where it’ll all finish up again,